Moonlit Reflections
by shorinai
Summary: Mostly introspective, mostly Kenshin.


Hey, I actually finished one! (Second one done, and they're both short. ::sigh::) Um, lessee... very, very, very minor spoilers, nothing remotely explicit. Maybe a little angsty. Those should be the only warnings this one needs. ^_^  
  
Disclaimer: I have no rights to this series, those all belong to Watsuki-sama and all those big companies that produced it. I'm just doing this for fun, don't sue me, I have no money!  
  
If someone else is already using this title, tell me and I'll change mine, okay? Okay.  
  
C&C appreciated, please send it to shorinai@yahoo.com  
Now, on with the 'fic!  
  
_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_  
  
  
MOONLIT REFLECTIONS  
by Lady Shorinai  
  
  
Nothing.  
  
That was the first sensation that came to him when he woke in the now-familiar darkness of his room in the Kamiya Dojo. No danger, nothing wrong, no reason for him to wake from a sound sleep just after moonrise.  
  
A few moments later, he opened his eyes. The orbs now most commonly seen as gentle violet were a hard, yellow-flecked blue. He didn't think there was anything wrong, but he had to check anyway. If something happened and he didn't know it because he was too lazy to take a look, he would never forgive himself. In a single smooth motion he pushed back the blankets, rose to his feet, and headed out the door, automatically snatching up his sakabatou on the way.  
  
The moon was half-full, providing plenty of shadows for him to hide in if he wanted to. Out of long habit he did so. Kaoru's room was the one next to his but that didn't mean he should be any less cautious. He paused at her door, listening for sounds from inside. Hearing none, he slid the door open just far enough to admit his body, entered, and slid it closed again.  
  
Kaoru was in bed, sleeping peacefully. Seeing her safe, the yellow specks sank into the blue, so now his eyes merely gleamed instead of glowed. Padding softly forward, he knelt by her futon. Still, she slept. That was not surprising, really. He'd had five years of training and fifteen of practice to perfect his skills in stealth. Needing to reassure himself of her reality, he brushed a few silken strands of her hair off her cheek. She sighed and he froze. A minute later, when he knew she would not wake, he moved back and settled himself against a wall, sword resting against his shoulder.  
  
Unbeknownst to her, he spent part of most nights guarding her sleep. The only times he didn't were when his health was not up to moving silently enough not to wake her, or when he had to go take care of something or someone. When she was ill, he spent even more time than usual. Ever since that first night, when Hiruma Gohei posed as Battousai and cut her arm, he had done so. Even on the second night, after he escaped from the shed and before he left, he looked in on her briefly, just to make certain she was alright.  
  
Sometimes demons haunted her sleep, most often when she was feverish. Only twice had he dared to wake her. Both times she had been ill. Was it cowardice on his part that kept him from taking her in his arms and give her comfort when she could not escape sleep on her own?  
  
Yes.  
  
It was.  
  
He knew it, and acknowledged it. He was afraid she would learn what he did night after night, hate him for it, and cast him away from her. He had lost too much in his life. He would not risk losing the light he had finally found after so long, the only light that did not push him away when he showed it his shadows. Instead of doing as others did, it had seen those shadows and accepted them, and they had faded some from the contact. They were not gone--they never would be--but this light was willing to help ease them, by the simple act of not shunning them. He would not endanger the tentative peace this girl offered. A different chance had been offered to him, more than ten years prior, and he had destroyed it with his own hands. He would neither forget nor repeat what had come before. He would not push his shadows toward her light in a vain attempt to erase them; he was content to bask in the fringes of her brilliance. Getting closer would mean giving his shadows an opportunity to try and extinguish the light. He refused to tempt them. It was all he asked for to never have to leave the shelter she offered his haunted soul.  
  
Was that such a great thing? Was it too much to ask? Was it more than he deserved?  
  
Perhaps. But it was what he wanted, what he longed for. Doesn't everyone deserve a chance for peace? Isn't that what he had fought for, killed for? Or had he used up all of his peace in the first seven years of his life, before his parents died? Was he supposed to keep living as a wanderer, fighting to save the peace of others at the cost of his own?  
  
Wasn't fifteen years a long enough time for fighting? In all that time, hadn't he earned a repreive?  
  
Was it selfish to think so?  
  
Probably.  
  
But that didn't make him want it any less.  
  
The first birds of the morning were beginning to sing when he went back to his own room. By then, his eyes had faded back into their usual violet. Sighing, he laid back down to get a little more rest before he had to begin preparing breakfast.  
  
In the next room, blue eyes opened. "Kenshin?" she quietly asked. The empty room gave no reply. Sighing, she turned over and closed her eyes. "I must have been dreaming again. Fifth time this week, too. Stop torturing yourself, Kaoru; he wouldn't come in without asking first. Still...." _It just seemed so real_.  
  
_Kenshin_.  
  
  
owari 


End file.
